Advice — advice

Whenever I do interviews or seminars concerning my book, The New Comedy Writing Step by Step, interviewers and writers invariably ask "What's the first thing a person should do if he or she wants to become a comedy writer?" My response is a two-parter and although it's aimed primarily at comedy writing, it applies equally as well to all writing. It might seem that the first part of the response is so obvious that it shouldn't even have to be said. It is: If you want to become a comedy writer, start writing comedy. Yet, it does have to be...

Plot involves at least three primary threads: Dramatic Action, Character Emotional Development, and Thematic Significance. Of these three elements, writers are equally divided between those who begin a project by concentrating on the Dramatic Action and those who begin with Character Emotional Development. Dramatic Action writers tend to thrive on the excitement of what happens in the story. The first draft of a Dramatic Action writer is full of excitement with lots of conflict, tension, and suspense, twists and turns, chases and confrontations, and usually contains little character development. Often, a reader's comment of this first Dramatic Action draft is:...

"The humbling truth is that the film is made in the editing room." -David Mamet introducing the nominations for editing during the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony Editors are often called the last re-writers of the show. Another way to put this is that the editor is the architect of the show. Our blueprint is the script (or outline on a nonfiction show). Our building materials are the footage: long shots, wide shots, medium shots, close ups, over-the shoulders, inserts, raking shots, reverses, master shots, and two-shots. From these we design the show with sound, dialogue, music, and the placement and...

The key question that all screenwriters should ask themselves is: how do I write a script that Hollywood wants to buy? Most writers mistakenly think that success is all about connections and star power. Not so. The real trick to writing a script that will sell is to know and use Hollywood's central marketing strategy. And that can be summed up in one word: genres.Former Universal Pictures chairman Marc Shmuger recently said, "There's no doubt the star system is in transformation. Arguably the two biggest stars in the first half of 2009 were Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and...

Read the rest of the series: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5. A lot of people believe that "Art" just comes into being full blown and word perfect straight from the cosmos, the collective conscious or unconscious, spirit guides, ascended masters, muses, angels, or aliens. Would that it were so. But then think how many development execs, story editors, writing teachers, and consultants would be out of work. Now some of you may say, "But my story came straight from a flash of inspiration down into my computer. I barely thought about it, I just wrote...